Royal Society on climate change

I'm slightly late to the story, but it's being reported this morning that the Royal Society has bowed to pressure from sceptics and will replace its position paper on climate change, incorporating more of the uncertainties that concern sceptics.

Climate change: a summary of the science states that “some uncertainties are unlikely ever to be significantly reduced”. Unlike Climate change controversies, a simple guide — the document it replaces — it avoids making predictions about the impact of climate change and refrains from advising governments about how they should respond.

This is certainly welcome.

The wisdom of Solomon

As part of his ongoing investigations into the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, David Holland has used FoI to get hold of a pile of emails from Professor Brian Hoskins, then of the University of Reading and now at Imperial College.  Readers will remember that Professor Hoskins amusingly rubber-stamped the list of papers chosen by UEA for the Oxburgh report.

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Foundation for SciTech on global warming

The Foundation for Science and Technology is a charity that allegedly promotes science and technology and aims to bring about "the greater efficiency of the industry of the United Kingdom".

A brief glance at some of its council members might suggest a different view, however.

• Lord Rees
• Lord May
• Lord Oxburgh
• Lord Browne (head of BP)

Hmm....

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More coverage of Royal Society rebellion

The newspapers this morning have more coverage of the rebellion in the ranks of the scientific establishment.

Ben Webster in the Times names Sir Alan Rudge as the leader of the rebellion. Rudge is not naming the other signatories though. Webster notes Rudge's involvement in the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Louise Gray in the Telegraph covers the story too.

The Royal Society rewrite in the news

The story that the Royal Society is going to rewrite its climate change position paper appears to be making something of an impact. Here are a few relevant links:

The Royal Society's statement about the background is here. Apparently the rewrite had been, ahem, planned for some time. There's also this:

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Today on the Royal Society

BBC radio's flagship Today programme also covered the rumblings of discontent coming from within the Royal Society. The audio is here, starting just after 54 minutes.

Another climate review

Just back from London and things are hotting up nicely. Roger Harrabin has the big story of the day with the news that 43 fellows of the Royal Society have complained about the Society's climate coverage:

The UK's Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages.

They said the communications did not properly distinguish between what was widely agreed on climate science and what is not fully understood.

The society's ruling council has responded by setting up a panel to produce a consensus document.

This is pretty exciting stuff.

Update on May 27, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Interesting to remind ourselves of some earlier thoughts on the Royal Society's position on climate change.

No change at the Royal Society

Under the leadership of Lord Rees, the Royal Society's reputation has sunk dramatically, with this once august body now widely seen as a political body and a surrogate arm of the government, more interested in the next tranche of funding than truth. Their role in Lord Oxburgh's whitewashing may well hang over them for a long time to come.

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Lindzen on the academy heads

Richard Lindzen points out some of the problems with the recent letter to the FT by Ralph Ciccerone and Martin Rees:

Consider a letter of April 9 to the Financial Times by the presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Science and the Royal Society (Ralph Cicerone and Martin Rees, respectively). It acknowledges that climategate has contributed to a reduced concern among the public, as has unusually cold weather. But Messrs. Cicerone and Rees insist that nothing has happened to alter the rather extreme statement that climate is changing and it is due to human action. They then throw in a very peculiar statement (referring to warming), almost in passing: “Uncertainties in the future rate of this rise, stemming largely from the ‘feedback’ effects on water vapour and clouds, are topics of current research.”

Who would guess, from this statement, that the feedback effects are the crucial question? Without these positive feedbacks assumed by computer modelers, there would be no significant problem, and the various catastrophes that depend on numerous factors would no longer be related to anthropogenic global warming.

Acton's eleven

Steve McIntyre has followed up on the intriguing question of who selected the eleven papers for the Oxburgh panel to assess.

Oxburgh didn’t disclose how they selected their supposedly “representative” and “fair sample”. “Fair sample” and “representative” are statistical terms – terms were used in a report coauthored by a very senior professional statistician in a context where statistics are very much at issue. So I presume that the Royal Society took some care to ensure that the eleven publications actually were “representative” and a “fair sample” – and not ones that were pre-selected by UEA, rather than the Royal Society.

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Intriguing possibility

From Lord Oxburgh's report, paragraph 3 of 26.

The eleven representative publications that the Panel considered in detail are listed in Appendix B. The papers cover a period of more than twenty years and were selected on the advice of the Royal Society. All had been published in international scientific journals and had been through a process of peer review. CRU agreed that they were a fair sample of the work of the Unit. The Panel was also free to ask for any other material that it wished and did so. Individuals on the panel asked for and reviewed other CRU research materials.

So, not only did the Royal Society pick the members of the panel, but they also picked the papers that were to be examined.

I wonder who it was within the Royal Society that might have done this work. I mean, one would need a pretty in-depth understanding of climatology to be able to pick a representative sample of papers from the CRU oeuvre would one not? That sort of understanding isn't found on every street corner. So who might they have turned to?

How about the Royal Society Advisory Group on Climate Change? You know, the one with Phil Jones as a member.

They wouldn't have would they?

Royal Society podcasts

Podcasts of the Royal Society meeting on Uncertainty in Science are now available for download. Comments on the contents are particularly welcome.

French academy shames British one

Much excitement in France over the announcement that there is to be a national debate on climate change under the auspices of the French National Academy.

The move appears to have been prompted by the success of L'Imposture Climatique, a book by the sceptic scientist Claude Allegre, who has sold no less than 100,000 copies so far (a number which makes me extremely jealous).

The striking thing about the story though is what it reveals about the attitude of the French Academy of Sciences:

Noting that the Academy does not take sides on the issue, and that the Academy’s website already reports the views of scientists on both sides of the debate, [Academy president, Jean] Salençon aims to defend the scientific method and the principles of scientific inquiry, not any one scientific position. When asked if sanctions might be in the cards for Allegre, a member of the Academy, or any other climate sceptics, he replied: "Under no circumstances! There is no question of ethical sanctions. Even less of an expulsion. The nomination for the Academy of Sciences is perpetual. It cannot be reversed, not even through a resignation.”

Defending the principles of scientific inquiry eh? Not an approach that would win much favour with the grubby lobbyists of the Royal Society, with their guide to Facts and Fictions About Climate Change.

Royal Society panel announced

The Royal Society panel that is going to examine the scientific aspects on the Climategate affair has been announced. This is the press release from UEA (via a reader - it doesn't appear on the UEA website at the moment).

Lord Oxburgh FRS, a former chair of the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, is to chair an independent Scientific Assessment Panel to examine important elements of the published science of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.

His appointment has been made on the recommendation of the Royal Society, which has also been consulted on the choice of the six distinguished scientists who have been invited to be members of the panel.

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Royal Society on uncertainty

The Royal Society is holding a series of discussions on uncertainty in science in a couple of weeks' time. The programme looks pretty interesting. Among the highlights are:

• Lord May on Science as organised scepticism
• Julia Slingo on Uncertainty in Weather and Climate Prediction
• Peter Webster on Uncertainty in predicting extremes of weather and climate
• Leonard Smith on Uncertainty, ambiguity and risk in forming climate policy

Judith Curry is then running the closing panel discussion and overview.

Unfortunately registration is now closed, but if anyone is going it would be great to get a report on the proceedings.

In the meantime the BBC is discussing the issue of uncertainty today. This will presumably be available on the iPlayer later on.